Okay. Don't freak. Sorry for the delay.many people wanted me to continue
this, and so I did. Ever read "Lord of the Rings"? Read it - and that's
what I mean by the word 'love' when I use it. Oh, and please don't kill
me.
Ch. 6: These Dreams
He was dead. I didn't have to even look at the guards' faces to know that Kurapika had been put to death a week before; that was when they started to stop my visits to my former teacher. And from their eyes, I knew that he'd gone without a struggle, no fight, just acceptance. I wonder how he felt as they handed him the cup with that clear liquid, their eagle eyes gleefully watching every last drop drain into his mouth - how sad he must have felt as he stared up as he died, not at the open sky where he could play his violin and hear it vibrate across time and space, but at the gray ceiling and the walls of a prison cell. How could he have gone like that, just quietly like Socrates with all his friends watching as he drank his glass? How could he just leave without some anger, some desperate passion in his last moments? I could not believe that Kurapika could have been brought so low - that he could have been brought down from such confident heights to groveling at the feet of those unworthy animals who just saw him as an object of entertainment? Surely this was not the proud rebel leader - where was he in those last moments? My heart wanted to see that light of the white mansion at night when all is dark, I wanted to hear that single glimmering note that wavered above the class' heads like some invisible hope. . .
For I could not see anything but the eyes in his last days of imprisonment, of existence-without-life, dull and dead. I tried to remember of all the times that he had stood up in front of the class and shown us slide after slide of secret pictures that had been taken at temple ruins before they were destroyed (they weren't part of the Color System) or the moments when the music streamed out of his magic hands and rose like incense offerings to the sky - the moments when he seemed the most talented, the most brilliant entity in the entire world, but I could not see them, I knew that they had happened in word and in memory, but I could not see his face, I could not remember anything about the classes he had taught that entire year. Instead there was just his face, emotionless as he was for all the school year except for the two weeks before school was let out for summer vacation (as it was now), viewing things but not really seeing them, eating things but not savoring them, feeling objects but not really touching them. Thankfully he was sane all the times I came to visit him; perhaps, though, if he had been hysterical, I would have been able to be more apathetical to him in his last days - the way he had been, lucid in all his waking hours, I drew closer to his empty confidence, daring to hope that somehow he would escape.
It seemed in those hours I came, watching him spoon down hot soup that I had prepared at Kuroro's before visiting, I somehow loved him all the more, that he became dearer to me - as if his memory was somehow coming clearer in my mind even as he himself faded into a shade of himself before. I drew courage from the memory of his steadfast spirit that never seemed to break or even waver in resolve even though I could not 'see' him in these actions anymore. They would return after his death, I resolved. And somehow that thought didn't drive me to madness either - he did not seem to worry (but he didn't seem to feel either), and so somehow I didn't worry either, even though the other side of me begged for some miracle from God to save him. Indeed, he seemed already dead, he seemed only some spell- ridden corpse that by some horrible magic was still able to walk around and pretend he was my teacher. Still my love and my respect for his unwavering spirit grew.
I did not dwell on the thoughts that I had put him in such position. Sure, I knew it was true, but I did not let that guilt overcome me; Kurapika was more important at the moment. Even in his last days, he managed to cram knowledge into my head, not caring who saw or heard, just as long as I took notes of his soft-spoken lectures, recited from the heart. Somehow they seemed the only time that he looked even remotely alive, so lost in his memories he was that sometimes he lost his train of speech and just stared out into the gray exercise yard of the prison outside of his barred window, as if to say, What wouldn't I give to be back in those times when I thought everything I did was right? Why choose this path? Why didn't I listen and just be a good little boy and hear what consequences there would be?
Somewhere in the depths of my mind, I wanted to save him and become worthy of the martyrism that put Kurapika into the textbooks for other people to puzzle over. It was a selfish thought, of course, to want to become great and famous, even as a rebel and not an ally to the Color cause. But this did not override the pure love I had for my teacher now. All thoughts of Green and Blue and Violet left me; I let the guards outside speculate my special treatment for a lowly former rebel Green, let the entire world see. And this was another reason I wanted to become great and famous, because if I became as deadly as Kurapika was to the Color system, then I could save him, and Kurapika would be grateful to me. And though this incentive spurred my confidence, it obviously did NOT stimulate my brain cells fast enough to come up with a solution.
I returned home to lie on my bed, my mind numb and fuzzy. I saw nothing, felt nothing in the hours I lay there, pondering my fate and the insistent "Why?" that went though my head like lightning. And even as my imaginative mind came up with inventive (and utterly impossible) schemes to power, the other side of my brain despaired. The anger within me was hot, and I had to quickly come to a conclusion that could somehow balance out between regretting my vow later in life and ultimately demolishing the Color system and also be worthy of Kurapika's memory. The knowledge that he taught had to be put to good use. I knew it was just youthful eagerness, but I wanted to be that person to teach all those little children someday what it was to live in the old times when samurai's and Aztecs existed, carry out Kurapika's legacy if I could. But what could I do now, a not-boy-not-man of sixteen years, what influence did I have over the minds of the public? I had to wait, and time was my enemy.
I could only pray that waiting would not dull the pain of Kurapika's death too much, and that my impetuous anger, as spontaneous as it was now would not fail me when it came time for me to act. Too many times had humans proved fallible and unreliable. I could not allow myself to become the same.
And how many of my old classmates would support me in that venture, when the time came? How many would remember Kurapika's teachings and the way his eyes shone with pride as he looked out at us and saw that each of us was listening to something completely new that we had never heard before? More than ever I thought of how I could only depend on myself - but the Color rebellion that I had in mind would not be achieved by one person alone. There would be enough people who desired such a rebellion to work with, but not to trust when the tanks finally rolled into the city and started to gun down people. Then they would just turn tail and run - not that I could blame them. Human instinct had it so that all people would chose 'flight' before 'fight'.
In the space of time that seemed eternity as I lay on my bed with my hands unclenched and relaxed even as the anger within me flowed like fine wine between friends, all the extreme sorrows of the world came to me, it seemed, to beg for relief. Sometimes I felt that I might be able to turn back to my old life of ignoring the mistreatment of Greens and return to that state of apathetical unfeeling that predominated over the public anyways - I would fit in right with the rest of the crowd, wouldn't I? But then I would remember Kurapika, I would remember his face and his words as I knew I would remember them after his death, and I would get angry with myself for thinking of guilty thoughts. And so both sides of me warred back and forth, and I was surprised to find that the Color system had so much power over me; being born with it installed in my mind, it was hard to shake off.
How many Violets and Blues would there be if I really did succeed in reviving the want for the abolition of the Color system? Many of them, I knew, would be just like me - perceiving the wrong, seeing the unjust but too scared to act against it. How was I going to recruit those people? More than ever I wished Kurapika were here, he had a brilliant mind that I had not.
But he would have tried to dissuade me from my venture anyway. He would have told me to give up even before I started, even though I was trying to defend his memory with my actions. He would have been hesitant to help me, even though once he had been in the same position as I had been - and he understood that there was a lot more at stake than what I had considered. He would have looked up at me, his eyes piercing, and he would have said very calmly that I was doing a very foolish thing and that I should reconsider the value of my life. I couldn't be sure if I would have listened to him; it had never happened, and it would not happen now.
At long last I fell asleep, skipping dinner and breakfast the next morning in favor for a long rest. People who are very tired can remember their dreams far clearer than when they have been sleeping well, and I had been tired beyond relief. The entire time I slept, I dreamt of skillful hands with slender fingers, and music that wistered up high into the depths of space until everyone could hear it.
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ Author's note:
Yes, I know, a long and tedious and boring chapter, however necessary it was. I know it bored a lot of people and I know that maybe I should have made Killua witness to his death or something, but I couldn't bring myself to do that. I have heard testimony that Killua does not sound like Killua. . .indeed, I think the very same, he is terribly OOC especially in this chapter and I do apologize. As for the long break between the last chapter and this one. . .let's say my brain went on vacation, hmm?
Andrea Weiling
Ch. 6: These Dreams
He was dead. I didn't have to even look at the guards' faces to know that Kurapika had been put to death a week before; that was when they started to stop my visits to my former teacher. And from their eyes, I knew that he'd gone without a struggle, no fight, just acceptance. I wonder how he felt as they handed him the cup with that clear liquid, their eagle eyes gleefully watching every last drop drain into his mouth - how sad he must have felt as he stared up as he died, not at the open sky where he could play his violin and hear it vibrate across time and space, but at the gray ceiling and the walls of a prison cell. How could he have gone like that, just quietly like Socrates with all his friends watching as he drank his glass? How could he just leave without some anger, some desperate passion in his last moments? I could not believe that Kurapika could have been brought so low - that he could have been brought down from such confident heights to groveling at the feet of those unworthy animals who just saw him as an object of entertainment? Surely this was not the proud rebel leader - where was he in those last moments? My heart wanted to see that light of the white mansion at night when all is dark, I wanted to hear that single glimmering note that wavered above the class' heads like some invisible hope. . .
For I could not see anything but the eyes in his last days of imprisonment, of existence-without-life, dull and dead. I tried to remember of all the times that he had stood up in front of the class and shown us slide after slide of secret pictures that had been taken at temple ruins before they were destroyed (they weren't part of the Color System) or the moments when the music streamed out of his magic hands and rose like incense offerings to the sky - the moments when he seemed the most talented, the most brilliant entity in the entire world, but I could not see them, I knew that they had happened in word and in memory, but I could not see his face, I could not remember anything about the classes he had taught that entire year. Instead there was just his face, emotionless as he was for all the school year except for the two weeks before school was let out for summer vacation (as it was now), viewing things but not really seeing them, eating things but not savoring them, feeling objects but not really touching them. Thankfully he was sane all the times I came to visit him; perhaps, though, if he had been hysterical, I would have been able to be more apathetical to him in his last days - the way he had been, lucid in all his waking hours, I drew closer to his empty confidence, daring to hope that somehow he would escape.
It seemed in those hours I came, watching him spoon down hot soup that I had prepared at Kuroro's before visiting, I somehow loved him all the more, that he became dearer to me - as if his memory was somehow coming clearer in my mind even as he himself faded into a shade of himself before. I drew courage from the memory of his steadfast spirit that never seemed to break or even waver in resolve even though I could not 'see' him in these actions anymore. They would return after his death, I resolved. And somehow that thought didn't drive me to madness either - he did not seem to worry (but he didn't seem to feel either), and so somehow I didn't worry either, even though the other side of me begged for some miracle from God to save him. Indeed, he seemed already dead, he seemed only some spell- ridden corpse that by some horrible magic was still able to walk around and pretend he was my teacher. Still my love and my respect for his unwavering spirit grew.
I did not dwell on the thoughts that I had put him in such position. Sure, I knew it was true, but I did not let that guilt overcome me; Kurapika was more important at the moment. Even in his last days, he managed to cram knowledge into my head, not caring who saw or heard, just as long as I took notes of his soft-spoken lectures, recited from the heart. Somehow they seemed the only time that he looked even remotely alive, so lost in his memories he was that sometimes he lost his train of speech and just stared out into the gray exercise yard of the prison outside of his barred window, as if to say, What wouldn't I give to be back in those times when I thought everything I did was right? Why choose this path? Why didn't I listen and just be a good little boy and hear what consequences there would be?
Somewhere in the depths of my mind, I wanted to save him and become worthy of the martyrism that put Kurapika into the textbooks for other people to puzzle over. It was a selfish thought, of course, to want to become great and famous, even as a rebel and not an ally to the Color cause. But this did not override the pure love I had for my teacher now. All thoughts of Green and Blue and Violet left me; I let the guards outside speculate my special treatment for a lowly former rebel Green, let the entire world see. And this was another reason I wanted to become great and famous, because if I became as deadly as Kurapika was to the Color system, then I could save him, and Kurapika would be grateful to me. And though this incentive spurred my confidence, it obviously did NOT stimulate my brain cells fast enough to come up with a solution.
I returned home to lie on my bed, my mind numb and fuzzy. I saw nothing, felt nothing in the hours I lay there, pondering my fate and the insistent "Why?" that went though my head like lightning. And even as my imaginative mind came up with inventive (and utterly impossible) schemes to power, the other side of my brain despaired. The anger within me was hot, and I had to quickly come to a conclusion that could somehow balance out between regretting my vow later in life and ultimately demolishing the Color system and also be worthy of Kurapika's memory. The knowledge that he taught had to be put to good use. I knew it was just youthful eagerness, but I wanted to be that person to teach all those little children someday what it was to live in the old times when samurai's and Aztecs existed, carry out Kurapika's legacy if I could. But what could I do now, a not-boy-not-man of sixteen years, what influence did I have over the minds of the public? I had to wait, and time was my enemy.
I could only pray that waiting would not dull the pain of Kurapika's death too much, and that my impetuous anger, as spontaneous as it was now would not fail me when it came time for me to act. Too many times had humans proved fallible and unreliable. I could not allow myself to become the same.
And how many of my old classmates would support me in that venture, when the time came? How many would remember Kurapika's teachings and the way his eyes shone with pride as he looked out at us and saw that each of us was listening to something completely new that we had never heard before? More than ever I thought of how I could only depend on myself - but the Color rebellion that I had in mind would not be achieved by one person alone. There would be enough people who desired such a rebellion to work with, but not to trust when the tanks finally rolled into the city and started to gun down people. Then they would just turn tail and run - not that I could blame them. Human instinct had it so that all people would chose 'flight' before 'fight'.
In the space of time that seemed eternity as I lay on my bed with my hands unclenched and relaxed even as the anger within me flowed like fine wine between friends, all the extreme sorrows of the world came to me, it seemed, to beg for relief. Sometimes I felt that I might be able to turn back to my old life of ignoring the mistreatment of Greens and return to that state of apathetical unfeeling that predominated over the public anyways - I would fit in right with the rest of the crowd, wouldn't I? But then I would remember Kurapika, I would remember his face and his words as I knew I would remember them after his death, and I would get angry with myself for thinking of guilty thoughts. And so both sides of me warred back and forth, and I was surprised to find that the Color system had so much power over me; being born with it installed in my mind, it was hard to shake off.
How many Violets and Blues would there be if I really did succeed in reviving the want for the abolition of the Color system? Many of them, I knew, would be just like me - perceiving the wrong, seeing the unjust but too scared to act against it. How was I going to recruit those people? More than ever I wished Kurapika were here, he had a brilliant mind that I had not.
But he would have tried to dissuade me from my venture anyway. He would have told me to give up even before I started, even though I was trying to defend his memory with my actions. He would have been hesitant to help me, even though once he had been in the same position as I had been - and he understood that there was a lot more at stake than what I had considered. He would have looked up at me, his eyes piercing, and he would have said very calmly that I was doing a very foolish thing and that I should reconsider the value of my life. I couldn't be sure if I would have listened to him; it had never happened, and it would not happen now.
At long last I fell asleep, skipping dinner and breakfast the next morning in favor for a long rest. People who are very tired can remember their dreams far clearer than when they have been sleeping well, and I had been tired beyond relief. The entire time I slept, I dreamt of skillful hands with slender fingers, and music that wistered up high into the depths of space until everyone could hear it.
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ Author's note:
Yes, I know, a long and tedious and boring chapter, however necessary it was. I know it bored a lot of people and I know that maybe I should have made Killua witness to his death or something, but I couldn't bring myself to do that. I have heard testimony that Killua does not sound like Killua. . .indeed, I think the very same, he is terribly OOC especially in this chapter and I do apologize. As for the long break between the last chapter and this one. . .let's say my brain went on vacation, hmm?
Andrea Weiling